Saturday, December 17, 2016

12 Conditions for “Praising” Buhari

Buhari apologists say I have never praised Buhari since he
came to power. Well, that’s not my job. I am a scholar. But I have defended
Buhari many times in the past when I thought he was unfairly attacked.

For instance, in 2012
when pundits—and Jonathan’s media team—tore him to shreds for saying “kare jini, biri jini” [Hausa for “the
dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood”], I vigorously defended him. Read
my May 27, 2012 article titled, “Idioms, Mistranslation, and Abati’s Double Standards.”

Even when he visited the US in July 2015 and made his infamously
unwise comment that he didn’t give a hang about people from the deep south who
didn’t vote for him, I defended him because I thought he realized his error and
retracted what he said in the same speech. Read my July 25, 2015 article titled,
“President Buhari’s Grand Moments in America.” As recently as November 19, 2016, I defended him against false charges that he contributed millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton's campaign (see "Buhari's Phantom $500M Donation to Clinton's Campaign"). I
can go on, but that’s irrelevant now.

Here is the deal. If Buhari apologists want my “praises”—and
the “praises” of other disinterested, conscientious, and politically unaffiliated
people who criticize this administration— let their idol do the following and
they won’t be able to contain rapturous applause he’d get not just from me but
from millions of Nigerians:

1. Assemble a sound economic advisory team to help him
tackle our economic malaise. You can’t have 6 media aides and have only one
diplomat (yes a diplomat!) as an economic adviser (who, by the way, is assigned
to the VP’s office) in a time of recession and think people won’t call you
clueless and unprepared.

2. Truthfully declare his assets and not the insincere, half-hearted
job his media team did. No one forced Buhari to promise that he would publicly
declare his assets. On February 20, 2015, he said, “I pledge to PUBLICLY
declare my assets and liabilities, encourage all my appointees to publicity
declare their assets and liabilities as a pre-condition for appointment.”

Well, from his partial declaration, we at least know that
Buhari has a house in Abuja even though he had always told Nigerians that he
had houses only in Daura, Kaduna and Kano. Only multimillionaires and billionaires
own homes in Abuja. Perceptive people
know why Buhari is scared of publicly declaring his assets: it would give the
lie to the image of modesty and frugality he studiously cultivated and promoted
over the years. But he can prove us wrong by doing what he promised to do
during the campaigns.

3. Sincerely investigate and prosecute the corrupt people in
his administration. Secretary to the Government of the Federation David Lawal
Babachir has become a byword for unspeakably high-profile corruption. He has
been accused of all kinds of shady deals, including callously shortchanging
IDPs, prompting the equally sleazy Senate to call for his prosecution.

Abba Kyari has been accused of all manner of corruption.
Irrefutable documentary proofs of Buratai’s corruption have been published on
Sahara Reporters. Amaechi has been accused of bribing judges. The list goes on.
Not a word has been heard from the presidency in response to any of these
accusations. But (corrupt) political opponents are hounded, even without firm
evidence, in the name of “anti-corruption” fight.

People who know Buhari intimately say nothing will happen to
corrupt people in his government as long as he is convinced that the corrupt
people are "loyal" to him. Personal loyalty, not national interest,
is all that matters to Buhari. That, in my dictionary, is also corruption. An
invidiously selective anti-corruption fight is itself corruption.

4. Punish people who “padded” the 2016 budget and not merely
transfer them, like Buhari did, to another ministry.

5. Stop the social apartheid that allocates billions of
naira to Aso Rock Clinic while public hospitals that serve millions of everyday
people are underfunded.

6. Obey his own directive to stop foreign medical treatment
for government officials. On April 27, 2016, Buhari said, “While this
administration will not deny anyone of his or her fundamental human rights, we
will certainly not encourage expending Nigerian hard earned resources on any
government official seeking medical care abroad, when such can be handled in
Nigeria.”

About a month later,
he went to London to treat an ear infection. On December 2, Abba Kyari, Buhari’s
ethically challenged Chief of Staff, was flown to London because he had “breathing difficulties.” Even with more than 3 billion naira a year budget, Aso Rock
Clinic couldn’t treat “breathing difficulties.”

7. Investigate and overturn the unlawful, clandestine
appointment of the children of politically connected people in various agencies
of government.

8. Bring down the price of petrol AND make it available by
repairing existing refineries and building new ones from the money saved from
the last petrol price increase. Alternatively, he should encourage private
sector investment in petrol refining— beyond Dangote.

Nigeria’s economy— and Nigerian life itself—is
petrol-dependent in ways I have never seen anywhere. When you increase petrol
price, the price of every other thing goes up and never comes down. I warned
that the last petrol price hike would “ignite a hyperinflationary conflagration.”
I was right. The “hyperinflationary conflagration” is the immediate trigger of
the current recession. When incomes remain stagnant or non-existent and prices of everything go
through the roof, consumption slows or halts, and the economy shrinks. That’s
the textbook definition of recession.

9. Increase the national minimum wage so workers can cope
with the mounting hardship they are contending with.

10. At least bring back the millions of jobs that have been
lost since he came to power. The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, which is a
federal government agency, said, as of August this year, 4.58 million Nigerians
lost their jobs since Buhari became president.

11. Show some compassion. Most policies of Buhari appear
calculated to torment the weak, the vulnerable, and the helpless—the very
people who brought him to power. Since its coming into being nearly two years
ago, the Buhari government has increased petrol price by a larger margin than
any government in Nigerian history; removed subsidies on fertilizer and other critical
products; banned the importation of essential goods without developing local
alternatives thereby creating scarcity, hunger, inflation, and shadowy, underground
networks that exploit the poor; raised tariffs on most things; taxed everything
that moves; is unashamedly stealing from people's bank deposits in the name of
"stamp duty"; is helping private companies to engage in price gouging;
and is generally deepening the misery of everyday people.

12. Visit Maiduguri to sympathize with the people of the
northeast—and to prove that Boko Haram has truly been “defeated.”

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). He also writes two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust).

In April 2014 Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.